The San Diego Padres are alone atop the National League West in August for the first time in 15 years.
The white-hot Friars won their fifth game in a row by routing the San Francisco Giants, and took over first place after the rival-Dodgers were swept by the Los Angeles Angels on Wednesday night.
Though it has shared the division lead at various points in the year, San Diego sits alone atop the NL West for the first time since April 25. The Padres have also turned around a nine-game deficit in less than six weeks, since they trailed LA by that number of games on July 4.
In that span, San Diego is 23-12. The Dodgers are 12-21.
When Was The Last Time The Padres Were In First Place In August?
The date was Aug. 25, 2010. Barack Obama was president. Gas prices in California were about $3.15 per gallon. The No. 1 song on the radio was “Mine” by a little country/pop star named Taylor Swift that you may have heard of.
And, led by an MVP-caliber campaign from first baseman Adrian Gonzalez and an elite starting staff keyed by Mat Latos, Clayton Richard and Jon Garland, the Padres were 26 games over .500 and led the National League West by six-and-a-half games over the Giants.
Padres fans of a certain age don’t need to be reminded of what happened after that. San Diego dropped 10 straight games and blew its entire cushion as part of a 14-23 stretch to close the year.
In the days before the second — or even third — wild card, the Padres went 90-72 but missed the postseason entirely. The Giants closed their season 21-13 and took the division by two games.
San Francisco then went on a run in the postseason, stunning the Philadelphia Phillies en route to the World Series championship.
The Padres still have not won the NL West since 2006.
What Did The Padres Say About Taking Over First Place?
Though this may feel like a karmic season for the Padres‘ 2010 collapse, the Padres aren’t quite counting their chickens yet.
“[We have] got a month-and-a-half to play,” Ryan O’Hearn told the San Diego Times-Union.
O’Hearn was a trade-deadline acquisition yet has tasted postseason baseball before with the Baltimore Orioles. But even though San Diego has been to the playoffs in two of the past three years, the club’s core has seen this season’s differences — even more so the 2022 club that defeated the Dodgers in the NLDS en route to the NLCS.
We know how special a group we had over here, especially after the deadline,” Fernando Tatis Jr. said according to MLB.com. “We’re going out there confident every single day, playing good baseball, clean baseball. That’s what we’re capable of.”
Still, the weekend ahead will be huge for the Padres’ chances, since they will trek up the I-5 to Los Angeles for another date with the Dodgers. The Dodgers are 5-2 in the previous head-to-head games, owning the tiebreaker.
But, according to Tatis, that was before the Padres loaded up.
“Every player that has come in has contributed and been really, really big factors,” Tatis said. “They’re a really big part of this team. Hopefully, we can keep bringing it together.”
Padres Keep Streak Going, Do Something They Haven’t In 15 Years